God, how I’ve missed this man. He was basically a brother to me my whole life. He was my protector. My confidante. My best friend.
“What—?” I begin, but he cuts me off with one look.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he demands.
“At what point, Carmine? When my parents were brutally murdered, and I was afraid I was next?”
“We would have protected you,” he says, pacing the room again. “I would have protected you.”
“How? They managed to kill my father, and as much of a bastard as he was, he wasn’t stupid. He couldn’t protect himself or my mother. I was a sitting duck, and Grandma knew it. So, she got me out of there and told me to wait for her to send for me. Which she never did.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” he growls and pushes his hand through his dark hair. “Do you realize that we thought you were dead? The three of us mourned you.”
“I’m sorry.” My voice is soft as I think of these three men that I love so much hurting over the thought of losing me. “I’m so sorry that it had to be that way.”
“It didn’t have to be that way. After everything I’ve been through in my life, I’ve never felt this betrayed, Elena. And I didn’t expect that treachery to come from you, someone I trusted with my life.”
“It’s not like I deliberately did anything to you,” I say in my defense. “I had to disappear. And for eight years, I’ve been safely hidden away, living my life. I will not apologize for loving that life, Carmine.”
“So, you go away, and you live your fun life away from the family for eight fucking years. None of us knows. And then one day, you attend a funeral, and we find out about it, and we’re supposed to just leave you be?”
“So you did recognize me.”
“I’d know you anywhere,” he says. “Not only did you betray me by leaving, but now I have to punish you, Elena. I have to hurt you, the one person in this world that I never want to hurt. All because you couldn’t be loyal to the family.”
“I DIDN’T CHOOSE THIS FAMILY!” I yell, surprising us both. “I don’t want any part of this life, Carmine. And I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings because I love you so much, but the mafia life isn’t something I want.”
“That’s not how this works, and you know it.” He paces away and then comes back to me again. “You don’t get to fucking choose.”
“Now you sound like my father.”
“Your father was a pitiful excuse for a human being. He was a horrible boss, and a deplorable husband and father. But in this, he wasn’t wrong, Elena. You don’t walk away from this family, or from this life. Gram gave you an eight-year vacation, and that’s over. It’s time to get back to real life and accept the consequences of your actions.
“But I’ll tell you this: no matter how much you hate the fact that you’re part of this family, you can either make it work for you or against you. That’s something you never understood.”
“It’s always against me if I can’t be with the man I love, Carmine.”
“That’s another thing,” he says and shoves his hands into his pockets. “You didn’t trust me enough to let me know that you were okay, that you were hiding, but you’ve been shacking up with Archer all this time?”
I shake my head. “You obviously haven’t been watching me for long. Archer found me about a month ago.”
“And you just fell right back into bed with him.”
I feel the blood drain out of my face and then surge back into my veins with fury.
“Let me be clear, Carmine. We didn’t split up because we fell out of love. We split because my father beat the shit out of me and threatened to kill him if I didn’t break it off.”
Carmine’s eyes turn sober.
“He hurt you?”
I turn and lift my shirt and hear Carmine’s quick gasp from behind me.
“He tortured me for days, then showed me a live feed of Archer and his sister, with one of his goons ready to fucking kill them both. I wasn’t given a choice. Because I don’t have the right to choose, remember?”
“You never told me that he did that to you. You know that goes against what we believe in.”
“And you know that he didn’t give a shit about me. He just wanted to control me. In any way he could. So, yeah, when Grandma gave me the option to run away, I grabbed onto it with both hands, and I never looked back. No matter how much I missed you and Shane and Rocco. Because any family who would do this to me is one I want no part of.”
“Well, you’re back now,” he says, and then his shoulders sag in defeat. “Fuck, Elena. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from that piece of shit. I’m sorry that he ever laid hands on you. I would have been there—”
“You were hardly more than a kid yourself, with no clout in the family yet, Carmine. There was nothing you could have done.”
I feel the tears threatening.
“I know you’re angry and hurt, but I did miss you. All three of you. And I wondered about you often. When I came home for Grandma’s funeral, I wanted nothing more than to hug you. I walked right past you. I knew I shouldn’t have gone at all, but I loved her so much. I had to thank her for saving my life.”
He turns to look out the window.
“A part of me died when you left,” he admits, his voice quiet again. “I think the good parts of me died.”
“That’s not true.” He turns back to me with tormented eyes, and I can’t hold back any longer. I walk to him and wrap my arms around him, holding on tight. Slowly, he returns the hug, and we stay that way for several long moments. “You’re a good man, Carmine.”
“No. I’m not, Elena. I can’t be given the line of work I’m in. But I love you, and I’ll do what I can to protect you.”
I pull back to look up into his handsome face.
“What will Uncle Carlo do?”
He sighs. “I don’t know.”
Chapter 19
~Archer~
I’d consider this apartment beautiful if I weren’t being held in it against my will. Actually, that’s not correct. I’m here willingly because they have the love of my life, and I’ll do whatever needs to be done to keep her safe. Leaving her alone with Carmine was like tearing a limb from my body. Everything in me screamed not to let her out of my sight.
But she was so calm about it, so sure that she was safe with the man. Not to mention, I didn’t exactly have a choice with Rocco holding a gun to my side.
“So, you’re the infamous Archer,” Rocco says after leading me into the master suite from the living room, where Carmine is having words with Elena right now.
“And you three are the cousins.”
This room doesn’t have a bed in it. Instead, it’s set up as an office. A large desk fills the middle of the room with several computers, a printer, and more paperwork than I would expect on the surface. Then again, I have no idea how much paperwork it takes to run a mafia family. There’s a chair behind the desk, two in front of it, and a small couch off to the side.
It looks like the Martinellis have set this place up as some kind of home base so they don’t have to use their private homes or offices for the dirtier jobs.
If I wasn’t so fucking pissed, I’d be impressed.
“We should probably tie him up,” Rocco says to Shane, but I scoff and shake my head, getting their attention.
“Why?” I hold my hands out at my sides. “We’re here willingly. I’m not going anywhere unless it’s with Elena. I won’t run.”
Shane watches me with calm, cool, blue eyes. All three men have an air of danger around them. On a normal day, I would avoid fucking with them.
This isn’t a typical day.
“What’s he doing to her in there?” I ask, pacing to the door to try to hear anything, and then turning back to them. “No offense, but I don’t trust any of you.”
“He won’t hurt her,” Shane says. He stands by the windows, his arms crossed over his chest. All three were wearing suits, but they’ve since shed
their jackets and rolled the sleeves of their white shirts up to their elbows. All of the brothers are tall and broad with dark hair. Carmine’s and Rocco’s eyes are dark, while Shane’s are blue.
“You, on the other hand,” Rocco adds, “might want to worry about your own skin.”
“What are you going to do to me?” I lean my shoulder against the wall, facing them. “Skin me alive? Shoot me in the knees? Cut off my fingers at the knuckles? Will I be swimming with the fishes?”
“None of that today,” Shane says. “But Pop will want to meet you sooner or later, and then it’ll get interesting.”
My phone, which they confiscated right away and set on the desk in the middle of the room, lights up.
“Your phone’s been blowing up all day,” Shane says, peering down at the screen. “Who’s Lindsey? Are you two-timing my cousin?”
I laugh. “No. That’s Elena’s best friend. She has my number because Elena doesn’t have a cell phone. They were supposed to have drinks today. She’s probably wondering where Elena is, and why she’s been stood up.”
The screen lights up again. If they plan to monitor my phone all day, it’ll be a full-time job. It never stops.
“And Matt?”
“My cousin.” I see Shane’s eyes shift to Rocco. “But you already know that. Your family dug up everything there is to know about mine years ago. So, you know who they are. When they can’t reach me, they’ll start a search, and it won’t be a tiny neighborhood watch.”
“Oh, look at that,” Shane says, his voice as dry as the desert as he throws my phone on the floor and smashes it with the heel of his boot. “I’ve just run out of fucks. It doesn’t matter to me who your family is. You’re dealing with my family now, Montgomery.”
“You should have just stayed away from her,” Rocco says, joining the conversation. “If you’d minded your own business, life would be so much easier for you.”
“She is my business.”
“How long have you been shacked up together? Since she left eight years ago?”
I frown. They obviously don’t know as much as they want me to think they do.
“I found her a month ago,” I reply. “I was done being without her.”
“Maybe it wasn’t explained to you the way it should have been,” Shane says as he walks away from the window. “It’s not just about Elena. It’s about the family. Her father forbade your relationship because you don’t come from the right pedigree. She was supposed to marry someone in another mafia family, to tie the two together and strengthen us as a whole.”
“She’s a woman, not a business merger.”
“She’s both,” Rocco says. “And she was the only child of the boss. Because she’s female, the Watkins name ends with her.”
“How are you related?” I ask, truly curious.
“Elena’s father and our mother are siblings,” Shane says. “Our mother married Pop, bringing in the Martinellis to the family. The connection between the Wakinses and the Martinellis goes back generations. Sometimes, it was good. And other times not so good. Our parents’ marriage smoothed the relationship, and made the Watkinses stronger than they ever were without us.”
“And that was the goal with Elena,” Rocco continues. “She was betrothed to a member of the Russian mafia, but that didn’t work out for…various reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“Those aren’t important,” Shane replies. “What is important is that you understand why you’ll never marry Elena, and why you can’t be a member of this family. If you’re brought in, your loyalties have to change immediately. Family first.”
“And he means the mafia family,” Rocco clarifies. “Not your family, or Elena. The organization as a whole.”
“Your family, the people you care about and come from, will no longer exist in your world. You’ll be completely consumed by the Martinellis and their needs.”
Bull. Shit.
“I can see that doesn’t sit well,” Shane says. “And it shouldn’t. We’re not a normal situation. Unless you’re born and bred into it, it seems wrong. But it’s not. It’s just…different.”
“Killing and blackmailing aren’t wrong?” I ask.
Rocco cracks his knuckles. “They probably deserved to get dead.”
I shake my head and turn back to the door, wondering what’s happening in the living room.
“You’re not going to talk me out of what I want, gentlemen.”
“So, you’re willing to risk your family, your business, everything for Elena? You’d choose her over those you love the most? Because that’s what it boils down to, Archer.” Shane tilts his head to the side, watching me carefully. “What are you willing to do? What are you willing to give up for the woman you say you love?”
“God, I’m so tired,” Elena says. It’s twenty-four hours later, and nothing has changed. We’re in the same apartment, wearing the same clothes, stuck with the same people.
The difference there is, the cousins have taken turns sleeping.
We aren’t allowed to do that.
“I don’t understand this particular form of psychological warfare,” I say, keeping my voice mild when I feel anything but. I long to stand and pace the room, punch a wall. Anything. “You keep us awake for what?”
“Mental exhaustion is just one way to wear a person down,” Elena says with a sigh and leans her head on my shoulder. We’re curled up on the couch together while Carmine and Shane work on laptops at the dining room table. “It’s an old trick. Guys, just let me nap.”
“No,” Carmine says as he continues tapping on the keyboard of his laptop.
“What do you want?” I ask, still mindful to keep my voice calm. “Are you wearing us down to talk about something? Do I have information you need? What’s the end goal here?”
Carmine looks up from his computer. “We want you to willfully leave Elena be. To agree to disappear from her life forever.”
“No.”
Elena stiffens beside me. “Are you fucking serious?” she demands. “That’s what this is about?”
“What did you think it was about?” Shane asks.
“I thought you were just holding us here and being jerks until Uncle Carlo decided to stop by.”
“That’s only part of it,” Carmine says. “The end goal, as Archer put it, is for him to leave permanently.”
“Not going to happen.”
“No?”
“No.”
Carmine sits back in his chair and sighs. “I get it, Archer. Elena’s easy to love. She always has been. But don’t do this to yourself. You won’t win.”
Oh, yeah, motherfucker? Try me.
Carmine stands and, with his computer, walks to us, sitting on the arm of the sofa as he taps some keys.
A photo comes up of Rocco squatting next to two little girls at a park, and I feel my blood run cold.
“Who’s that?” Elena asks.
“My cousin’s daughters.”
I’m going to rip your damn eyeballs out of your skull.
“Seems your cousins drop their kids off at birthday parties and just leave.” Carmine clicks his tongue. “That’s not very safe. Anyone could just walk right up to little Olivia and Stella here and snatch them away. Look at how they’re laughing at what Rocco’s telling them.”
“When was this?” Elena asks.
“This afternoon,” Carmine says as if he’s talking about what kind of flowers he plans to plant in his garden this year. “Oh, look at this one. It really is fun to look at photos of your family.”
He taps the arrow key, and a new picture fills the screen.
“Anastasia, isn’t it?” he asks. “She’s beautiful.”
If you touch a hair on her head, they will never find your fucking body.
“Looks like she’s leaving a women’s health clinic. Did you know she’s pregnant?”
What? I have to fight not to blink quickly or stand and demand to leave so I can call her. Pregnant? That news is amazing and
fantastic.
And I’ll murder these assholes myself if they touch her.
“Oh, my God,” Elena whispers, gripping onto my arm. “Carmine, no.”
“It would be a shame, wouldn’t it, if Anastasia was in a horrible car accident and they both died?”
You. Mother. Fucker.
But my expression is impassive when he looks down into my face.
“Carmine, this is insane. Since when do we threaten the lives of innocent people?”
“Since always,” he says, not even sparing her a glance. “You’ve just been very sheltered, Elena.”
“No,” she says and stands to pace, stopping by Shane. “Stop this.”
“Don’t you have anything to say?” Carmine asks me.
“What do you want me to say?”
He shuts the computer with an angry snap and paces away from me. “Don’t you give a shit about your family, Archer?”
“You haven’t been listening to me,” I reply as I stand and prop my hands on my hips. “They aren’t some small, meek people in the middle of nowhere that you can bully. If you do this, if you hurt anyone I love, you have no idea the wrath they will unleash on you. On all of you. You think the fucking mafia is scary? Try fucking with the Montgomerys. We have deep contacts with law enforcement, with the military. Hell, the O’Callaghans may have ties with the Irish Mafia, for all we know. The connections and money my family has are endless, and they will end you if you hurt us.”
Shane laughs, surprising Elena. “I have to respect your arrogance, Montgomery. You’re foolish, but you’re confident.”
“Nothing I’ve said is a lie,” I reply.
“Archer,” Carmine begins and walks to me, putting his nose only inches from mine. “We know everything there is to know about you and your connections. Do I look concerned?”
“You should be.”
“No, my friend.” He shakes his head. “You should be worried. Because that wrath you speak of? It’s about to rain down in ways you’ve never dreamed of.”
“I’m not your friend.” I stare at him, unblinking. “Bring it.”
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